Jimi Hendrix's former girlfriend Kathy Etchingham has lashed out at director John Ridley and the filmmakers behind 2014 biopic Jimi: All Is By My Side for the inaccuracies about her romance with the guitar great in the movie. Etchingham has offered to produce medical records to prove violent scenes in the film never took place, calling the errors in the movie "shocking".
She tells DJ Rich Davenport that brutal scenes featuring Hayley Atwell, who portrays her, and Andre Benjamin as Hendrix in the film are pure fantasy.
Etchingham states, "The whole story is a fabrication. Even the things that did happen have not been produced accurately.
"John Ridley didn't consult me, so I don't know where he got it from. Apparently Jimi beat my head in with a telephone receiver and then beat me up in the street. They've got me taking an overdose of tablets and being in hospital. None of these things happened.
"I was completely shocked. If somebody beat you up like that, the police would be involved. If you took an overdose a psychiatrist would be involved. With the National Health Service your medical records stay with you for life. I'd be quite happy to produce them - there'd be nothing in there."
Etchingham admits she offered Ridley help as a consultant when she heard Outkast rapper Benjamin had been cast as Hendrix, adding, "I wrote a nice email saying, 'If you need any help don't hesitate to ask'. He didn't even have the common courtesy to say thanks but no thanks. He didn't respond. He went out of his way not to talk to me.
"He still maintains he spoke to Jimi's friends. I know them all - and none of them have heard of John Ridley."

Starz Entertainment
When the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie came out, it seemed Hollywood had hit peak pirate attractiveness levels — Johnny Depp wearing black eyeliner, Orlando Bloom and Jack Davenport sent the hearts of middle school girls (and women of all ages probably) around the world a-fluttering. Now, the new Starz series Black Sails totally outshines all the Pirates of the Caribbean films put together. Apparently there is room for more attractive pirates in Hollywood.
Let’s start with the men: in the main cast we’ve got Luke Arnold as John Silver, Tom Hopper as Billy Bones, Zach McGowan as Captain Vane, and Toby Stephens as Captain Flint. For those who love tall guys, Hopper is 6’5” (yes, I absolutely looked that up). McGowan is shirtless in the first episode and has the body of Chris Hemsworth in the Marvel films. Stephens is a mix of Michael Fassbender and Damian Lewis (it’s a deadly combination). Meanwhile, Arnold has the bad boy smirk down, reminding us of that elusive older guy we crushed on in high school.
However, as much as the men of Black Sails are attractive, so are the ladies (though there aren’t quite as many). Hannah New plays Eleanor Guthrie, a take charge kind of woman who isn’t afraid to get in a guy’s face; Max, a smart and cunning prostitute, is played by Jessica Parker Kennedy; and the mysterious Anne Bonny, who hides under her hat most of the time, is played by Clara Paget. The women of Black Sails could definitely give the men a run for their money.
No matter what you’re into, it’s likely you’ll be attracted to at least one character on Black Sails — or all of the characters, that is totally possible as well. It has us wondering if a cast could be anymore attractive (we think not).
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ABC
It’s sad when a series with a great cast, solid writing, and a fascinating premise doesn’t get a chance. Sometimes, it just boils down to timing. FlashForward came at the tail end of Lost. An ensemble cast united around a strange and mysterious event was a tough sell for two different series on the same network. FlashForward was unable to find its footing.
For two minutes and seventeen seconds, the entire world blacks out. While knocked out, they all have visions of their future, a “flashforward.” A team of FBI agents is drafted with investigating it, led by Mark Benford (Joseph Fiennes) and Demetri Noh (John Cho). These visions start to affect everyone around the world because with no context how can people reconcile their visions. The department also starts to question whether the phenomenon was man-made by the quantum experiments of Dr. Lloyd Simcoe (Jack Davenport) and Dr. Simon Campos (Dominic Monaghan).
The series is fascinating because not only does it set up a season-long mystery, it also manages to call into question free will. Are these people meant to make these visions come to pass or can they be changed? The series is also a little smarter than a show like Lost because it isn’t one big clandestine mystery for mystery’s sake. The series is following a trajectory outlined in the pilot episode.
The casting is really great too. Fiennes was great in Shakespeare in Love and has since made some notable television appearances. After his successful role in Coupling but before appearing on Smash, Davenport’s character of a lovable widower with an autistic son is an interesting choice for a potential rival for Mark Benford’s wife. Also, a pre-Happy Endings Zachary Knighton stars as a cancer survivor with renewed hope when his flashforward reveals a potential love connection. Plus, the incomparable John Cho playing his hand at drama is a treat.
FlashForward is an amazing binge watch. Not only will you be starving for answers after the first episode but you also get the luxury of watching it all in a few sittings. The entire series is available on Hulu.

Lions Gate via Everett Collection
When we last left our heroes, they had conquered all opponents in the 74th Annual Hunger Games, returned home to their newly refurbished living quarters in District 12, and fallen haplessly to the cannibalism of PTSD. And now we're back! Hitching our wagons once again to laconic Katniss Everdeen and her sweet-natured, just-for-the-camera boyfriend Peeta Mellark as they gear up for a second go at the Capitol's killing fields.
But hold your horses — there's a good hour and a half before we step back into the arena. However, the time spent with Katniss and Peeta before the announcement that they'll be competing again for the ceremonial Quarter Quell does not drag. In fact, it's got some of the film franchise's most interesting commentary about celebrity, reality television, and the media so far, well outweighing the merit of The Hunger Games' satire on the subject matter by having Katniss struggle with her responsibilities as Panem's idol. Does she abide by the command of status quo, delighting in the public's applause for her and keeping them complacently saturated with her smiles and curtsies? Or does Katniss hold three fingers high in opposition to the machine into which she has been thrown? It's a quarrel that the real Jennifer Lawrence would handle with a castigation of the media and a joke about sandwiches, or something... but her stakes are, admittedly, much lower. Harvey Weinstein isn't threatening to kill her secret boyfriend.
Through this chapter, Katniss also grapples with a more personal warfare: her devotion to Gale (despite her inability to commit to the idea of love) and her family, her complicated, moralistic affection for Peeta, her remorse over losing Rue, and her agonizing desire to flee the eye of the public and the Capitol. Oftentimes, Katniss' depression and guilty conscience transcends the bounds of sappy. Her soap opera scenes with a soot-covered Gale really push the limits, saved if only by the undeniable grace and charisma of star Lawrence at every step along the way of this film. So it's sappy, but never too sappy.
In fact, Catching Fire is a masterpiece of pushing limits as far as they'll extend before the point of diminishing returns. Director Francis Lawrence maintains an ambiance that lends to emotional investment but never imposes too much realism as to drip into territories of grit. All of Catching Fire lives in a dreamlike state, a stark contrast to Hunger Games' guttural, grimacing quality that robbed it of the life force Suzanne Collins pumped into her first novel.
Once we get to the thunderdome, our engines are effectively revved for the "fun part." Katniss, Peeta, and their array of allies and enemies traverse a nightmare course that seems perfectly suited for a videogame spin-off. At this point, we've spent just enough time with the secondary characters to grow a bit fond of them — deliberately obnoxious Finnick, jarringly provocative Johanna, offbeat geeks Beedee and Wiress — but not quite enough to dissolve the mystery surrounding any of them or their true intentions (which become more and more enigmatic as the film progresses). We only need adhere to Katniss and Peeta once tossed in the pit of doom that is the 75th Hunger Games arena, but finding real characters in the other tributes makes for a far more fun round of extreme manhunt.
But Catching Fire doesn't vie for anything particularly grand. It entertains and engages, having fun with and anchoring weight to its characters and circumstances, but stays within the expected confines of what a Hunger Games movie can be. It's a good one, but without shooting for succinctly interesting or surprising work with Katniss and her relationships or taking a stab at anything but the obvious in terms of sending up the militant tyrannical autocracy, it never even closes in on the possibility of being a great one.
3.5/5
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After Dark Films
It seems a bit odd to take on a movie review of Courtney Solomon's Getaway, as only in the loosest terms is Getaway actually a movie. We begin without questions — other than a vague and frustrating "What the hell is going on?" — and end without answers, watching Ethan Hawke drive his car into things (and people) for the hour and a half in between. We learn very little along the way, probed to engage in the mystery of the journey. But we don't, because there's no reason to.
There's not a single reason to wonder about any of the things that happen to Hawke's former racecar driver/reformed criminal — forced to carry out a series of felonious commands by a mysterious stranger who is holding his wife hostage — because there doesn't seem to be a single ounce of thought poured into him beyond what he see. We learn, via exposition delivered by him to gun-toting computer whiz Selena Gomez, that he "did some bad things" before meeting the love of his life and deciding to put that all behind him. Then, we stop learning. We stop thinking. We start crashing into police cars and Christmas trees and power plants.
Why is Selena Gomez along for the ride? Well, the beginnings of her involvement are defensible: Hawke is carrying out his slew of vehicular crimes in a stolen car. It's her car. And she's on a rampage to get it back. But unaware of what she's getting herself into, Gomez confronts an idling Hawke with a gun, is yanked into the automobile, and forced to sit shotgun while the rest of the driver's "assignments" are carried out. But her willingness to stick by Hawke after hearing his story is ludicrous. Their immediate bickering falls closer to catty sexual tension than it does to genuine derision and fear (you know, the sort of feelings you'd have for someone who held you up or forced you into accessorizing a buffet of life-threatening crimes).
After Dark Films
The "gradual" reversal of their relationship is treated like something we should root for. But with so little meat packed into either character, the interwoven scenes of Hawke and Gomez warming up to each other and becoming a team in the quest to save the former's wife serve more than anything else as a breather from all the grotesque, impatient, deliberately unappealing scenes of city wreckage.
And as far as consolidating the mystery, the film isn't interested in that either, as evidenced by its final moments. Instead of pressing focus on the answers to whatever questions we may have, the movie's ultimate reveal is so weak, unsubstantial, and entirely disconnected to the story entirely, that it seems almost offensive to whatever semblance of a film might exist here to go out on this note. Offensive to the idea of film and story in general, as a matter of fact. But Getaway isn't concerned with these notions. Not with story, character, logic, or humanity. It just wants to show us a bunch of car crashes and explosions. So you'd think it might have at least made those look a little better.
1/5
More Reviews:'The Hunt' Is Frustrating and Fantastic'You're Next' Amuses and Occasionally Scares'Short Term 12' Is Real and Miraculous
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The opening moments of “Masquerade,” Revenge’s last episode before going on a monthlong hiatus that will rob it of whatever uptick of viewers it's achieved the past couple weeks hearkened back to the very best thing about Season 2: The Gift of Revenge. You know what I’m talking about. Victoria’s fancy schmancy party invitations, wrapped in boxes with red ribbon, was the kind of thing that would have fit in perfectly with ABC’s holiday season experiment of using the show’s actors to promote products from their sponsors. It was the most DVR-proof form of advertising we’ve seen yet…and aired at a time we still thought Revenge might get back on track. Yeah, so much for that.
It’s a shame, really, because Victoria’s Halloween masquerade party should have been as icily creepy, as full of malice and suspense, as the orgy masquerade in Eyes Wide Shut. But, as with everything on this show lately, it was inert. Even with a six-week jump through time to kickstart Revenge’s sagging plotting.
“Masquerade” opened with Nolan going full John Nash on us. You know what I mean: writing equations on the glass panels of his office window. Six weeks had passed since he last saw Padma getting spirited into the back of a van in the clutches of Trask. Six weeks also since Daniel broke things off with Emily after receiving bullets in the mail, along with a picture of the two of them. And most (or least) importantly, it had been six weeks since Emily had first discovered that Victoria had given birth to a secret son when she was 16. Why she thinks this revelation will do more damage to her than her complicity in terrorism or the many other crimes she’s been involved in is hard to fathom. It’s really not any more shocking than finding out that Charlotte was David Clarke’s child, not Conrad’s. So Emily decided to send back an RSVP in response to Victoria’s masquerade party invitation with the postmark Oct. 21, 1973 and the signature, “From Your Loving Son.” Victoria seemed genuinely unsettled by that, for reasons that would be made only slightly more clear later on in the episode.
‘Revenge’ Recap: Ultimate Victory or Ultimate Defeat?
Victoria was also unsettled by how Emily tried to invite herself to the masquerade ball. “It may be Halloween, but some ghosts are better left outside,” she told Emily about why she hadn’t sent her an invitation. That’s one of the better bitch-isms we’ve gotten from her in quite awhile. So Emily sent her 11 black roses with a card indicating that her son would be wearing the 12th, to spook her even more.
And the only reason Emily didn’t get an invite from Daniel was because he’d broken off their renewed relationship after getting those bullets in the mail that were seemingly meant for the two of them. Guess who sent those? Victoria, of course. When Daniel confronted Trask about the treat, Trask replied, “We don’t threaten in two dimensions, we act in three.” Daniel knew immediately it had to have been his mother who sent those slugs. Guess who just got a re-invite to the masquerade ball!
Jack had helped Conrad close in on his opponent in the governor’s race by 4%. If Joe the Plumber himself had given John McCain that much of a bounce, 2008 might have played out differently. But as much of an electoral whiz as Jack had revealed himself to be, he was still plotting Conrad’s inevitable downfall. First up, he’d sabotage his town hall debate. And by town hall debate, we mean a highly-controlled press conference at the Stowaway. It was the only thing that could shake Conrad’s Clinton-esque cool. I also loved that snarky campaign adviser who said, “And once you’ve tapped your inner Clinton you tap nothing more, am I right, Miss Davenport?”
When the Stowaway campaign event happened, an ordinary joe who had been pre-screened to ask a question, went off script, saying he was “a friend of Amanda Porter’s” and was wondering what Conrad had done to call for an investigation into the jury tampering of David Clarke’s trial. Conrad was flummoxed but immediately pivoted and said that he wanted to reopen the case and call for a posthumous presidential pardon of Clarke if necessary. Not exactly what the Republican candidate’s base wanted to hear.
‘Revenge’ Recap: Return of the Evil Foster Brother
It was time for the masquerade ball to begin. As you could imagine, each character’s carnivalesque mask corresponded to their personality. Nolan’s was like the mask worn by Jim Carrey’s Riddler in Batman Forever—because he’s witty! Ashley had a cat mask. Conrad’s was as florid and decadent as he is. Emily’s dress matched her feathery mask to give a white swan look. And of course Victoria was sporting the black swan look. She had already invited another girl there to lure Daniel, and was more than dismayed to see that her son had invited Emily behind her back. Conrad made it clear to Ashley that she was one cat who didn’t have nine lives—and he’d be jettisoning her as soon as he won the governorship. He did not appreciate that she let that town hall participant ask that David Clarke question, spawning frantic phone calls to his doners to let him know that David Clarke won’t be a first-term priority. Daniel meanwhile handed those two bullets back to Victoria and said she’d have one for each of her two faces. So clever!
The real action, though, was taking place away from the party. Aidan had lured Trask into a trap and forced the Initiative goon at gunpoint to lead him to where they were holding Padma. They got to the warehouse where she was being held, and Padma was there laying on a table, stiff as a board. Considering how stiff Dilshad Vadseria’s acting always is, I didn’t really detect much unusual about this at first. Except that it turns out, she was really dead. The Initiative had killed her and her father that morning. Aidan was too late, once again. So he snapped Trask’s neck in payback. He showed up to the party and gave Nolan the bad news. His beloved was gone, to his grief and our rejoicing.
Nolan totally flipped out and had a full-on meltdown in the middle of the fete. Wearing a mask made it all the more surreal. He said Padma’s death was on him, but also on Emily. That makes him, by our count, the third man to say just that to Emily, after Aidan and Jack. Little did he know that Victoria was having a meltdown of her own, thinking that any dark-haired fortysomething guy there might be her son. She collapsed.
‘Revenge’ Recap: Return of the Evil Foster Brother
Conrad interpreted her collapse to mean, rightly, that she had not terminated her pregnancy after all, but that this other son could pop up Whac-a-Mole style at any time. She denied it, but ended up meeting with a nun to whom she had obviously given up her son for adoption decades ago. The nun said her son was alive and well and had even come to visit her looking for his birth mother years ago. She protected her identity and told the guy nothing. Victoria seemed pleased, then left. Then Emily showed up and told the sister that she was pregnant and had nowhere else to go and needed help. Look who just decided to con a nun to find out dirt on Victoria.
Do any of you have an idea where this is going? And is anyone actually said that Padma died?
Follow Christian Blauvelt on Twitter @Ctblauvelt
[Photo Credit: ABC/ Colleen Hayes]
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Robert Zemeckis is a blockbuster director at heart. Action has never been an issue for the man behind Back to the Future. When he puts aside the high concept adventures for emotional human stories — think Forrest Gump or Cast Away — he still goes big. His latest Flight continues the trend revolving the story of one man's fight with alcoholism around a terrifying plane crash. Zemeckis expertly crafts his roaring centerpiece and while he finds an agile performer in Denzel Washington the hour-and-a-half of Flight after the shocking moment can't sustain the power. The "big" works. The intimate drowns.
Washington stars as Whip Whitaker a reckless airline pilot who balances his days flying jumbo jets with picking up women snorting lines of cocaine and drinking himself to sleep. Although drunk for the flight that will change his life forever that's not the reason the plane goes down — in fact it may be the reason he thinks up his savvy landing solution in the first place. Writer John Gatins follows Whitaker into the aftermath madness: an investigation of what really happened during the flight Whitaker's battle to cap his addictions and budding relationships that if nurtured could save his life.
Zemeckis tops his own plane crash in Cast Away with the heart-pounding tailspin sequence (if you've ever been scared of flying before Flight will push into phobia territory). In the few scenes after the literal destruction Washington is able to convey an equal amount of power in the moments of mental destruction. Whitaker is obviously crushed by the events the bottle silently calling for him in every down moment. Flight strives for that level of introspection throughout eventually pairing Washington with equally distraught junkie Nicole (Kelly Reilly). Their relationship is barely fleshed out with the script time and time again resorting to obvious over-the-top depictions of substance abuse (a la Nic Cage's Leaving Las Vegas) and the bickering that follows. Washington's Whitaker hits is lowest point early sitting there until the climax of the film.
Sharing screentime with the intimate tale is the surprisingly comical attempt by the pilot's airline union buddy (Bruce Greenwood) and the company lawyer (Don Cheadle) to get Whitaker into shape. Prepping him for inquisitions looking into evidence from the wreckage and calling upon Whitaker's dealer Harling (John Goodman) to jump start their "hero" when the time is right the two men do everything they can to keep any blame being placed upon Whitaker by the National Transportation Safety Board investigators. The thread doesn't feel relevant to Whitaker's plight and in turn feels like unnecessary baggage that pads the runtime.
Everything in Fight shoots for the skies — and on purpose. The music is constantly swelling the photography glossy and unnatural and rarely do we breach Washington's wild exterior for a sense of what Whitaker's really grappling with. For Zemeckis Flight is still a spectacle film with Washington's ability to emote as the magical special effect. Instead of using it sparingly he once again goes big. Too big.
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"Sorry if my snoring bothered you."
Those are not the first words I'd expect out of the mouth of someone who got up on a Friday morning to catch the 10:30 AM screening of a new movie but that is more or less what the fellow who'd been sitting behind me said as I passed him on my way out. I'd heard him snoring over the constant rat-a-tat-tat of bullets and butt-kicking being doled out by Milla Jovovich et al in this latest iteration of the never-ending Resident Evil series (this time in IMAX 3D) but I figured maybe I was hearing things. Nope he was asleep.
I used to play Resident Evil on my ancient PlayStation when it first came out. It scared the crap out of me. I enjoyed the first two movies — hey they included the skinless zombie dogs! — but I lost interest soon after that. How many times can you make the zombie apocalypse exciting? How many different skintight outfits can Jovovich wear while killing grotesque creatures who shoot evil grasping tentacles out of their mouths? Why should we care about all the blood and guts when we know the people we're supposed to be emotionally invested in will never die? We don't.
Try as he might there are only so many ways for writer/director Paul W.S. Anderson to give the Resident Evil series fresh new layers for each new movie. The Umbrella Corporation is the big bad. They were playing with biological weapons and somehow there was an accident that let one of the viruses loose... and boom you've got a zombie apocalypse on your hands. Our heroine is Alice played by Milla Jovovich and there is a rotating cast of characters who help her fight the good fight against the hordes of brain-eaters and whatever is left of the Umbrella Corporation that's now after her. There are some parallels to the video game series but Paul W.S. Anderson (a gamer himself) has taken lots of liberties with the basic plot over the years. While Anderson's flashy style is especially suited to these types of movies there's not enough plot to make it work.
We don't go to video game movies for plot of course but there has to be something to hold onto; otherwise why would we care if our protagonist were in danger? Anderson tries some neat tricks to snap us back to attention like bringing back characters that were killed in previous movies and throwing in a cloning subplot that calls into question some of the characters' true identities but it's still hard to get worked up about anything onscreen. However it ultimately sidesteps any deeper ideas that might take our attention away from all the guns. And there are so many guns and explosions and elegant butt-kickings doled out by Milla and her pals (or former pals in the case of Michelle Rodriguez's character Rain) that they blend together.
It is especially difficult to work up any interest in the story because it's a franchise and no matter how many times the stars or director might say they're not that interested in doing another everyone is just waiting to see how much money this will make before deciding to go forward. There is no question how franchise movies will end; there will be no derring-do on the part of the writer or director to actually kill off a beloved character permanently. At one point it seemed like Anderson was going to pull the old "And then she woke up!" trick which would have been bold both because it's such a hackneyed idea that it would make writing professors' heads explode all over the world but also because it would have required Anderson to play in a different universe and expand his repertoire a bit. Alas like Alice and Anderson himself we just can't seem to escape this rabbit hole.

There is something particularly unnerving about demon possession. It's the idea of something you can't see or control creeping into your body and taking up residence eventually obliterating all you once were and turning you into nothing more than a sack of meat to be manipulated. Then there's also the shrouded ritual around exorcisms: the Latin chants the flesh-sizzling crucifixes and the burning Holy Water. As it turns out exorcism isn't just the domain of Catholics.
The myths and legends of the Jews aren't nearly as well known but their creepy dybbuk goes toe-to-toe with anything other world religions come up with. There are various interpretations of what a dybbuk is or where it comes from — is it a ghost a demon a soul of a sinner? — but in any case it's looking for a body to hang out in for a while. Especially according to the solemn Hasidic Jews in The Possession an innocent young person and even better a young girl.
The central idea in The Possession is that a fancy-looking wooden box bought at a garage sale was specifically created to house a dybbuk that was tormenting its previous owner. Unfortunately it caught the eye of young Emily (Natasha Calis) a sensitive artistic girl who persuades her freshly divorced dad Clyde (Jeffrey Dean Morgan of Watchmen and Grey's Anatomy) to buy it for her. Never mind the odd carvings on it — that would be Hebrew — or how it's created without seams so it would be difficult to open or why it's an object of fascination for a young girl; Clyde is trying really hard to please his disaffected daughters and do the typical freshly divorced parent dance of trying to please them no matter the cost.
Soon enough the creepy voices calling to Emily from the box convince her to open it up; inside are even creepier personal objects that are just harbingers of what's to come for her her older sister Hannah (Madison Davenport) her mom Stephanie (Kyra Sedgwick) and even Stephanie's annoying new boyfriend Brett (Grant Show). Clyde and Stephanie squabble over things like pizza for dinner and try to convince each other and themselves that Emily's increasingly odd behavior is that of a troubled adolescent. It's not of course and eventually Clyde enlists the help of the son of a Hasidic rabbi a young man named Tzadok played by the former Hasidic reggae musician Matisyahu to help them perform an exorcism on Emily.
The Possession is not going to join the ranks of The Exorcist in the horror pantheon but it does do a remarkable job of making its characters intelligent and even occasionally droll and it offers up plenty of chills despite a PG-13 rating. Perhaps it's because of that rating that The Possession is so effective; the filmmakers are forced to make the benign scary. Giant moths and flying Torahs take the place of little Reagan violently masturbating with a crucifix in The Exorcist. Gagging and binging on food is also an indicator of Emily's possession — an interesting twist given the anxieties of becoming a woman a girl Emily's age would face. There is something inside her controlling her and she knows it and she is fighting it. The most impressive part of Calis's performance is how she communicates Emily's torment with a few simple tears rolling down her face as the dybbuk's control grows. The camerawork adds to the anxiety; one particularly scary scene uses ordinary glass kitchenware to great effect.
The Possession is a short 92 minutes and it does dawdle in places. It seems as though some of the scenes were juggled around to make the PG-13 cut; the moth infestation scene would have made more sense later in the movie. Some of the problems are solved too quickly or simply and yet it also takes a while for Clyde's character to get with it. Stephanie is a fairly bland character; she makes jewelry and yells at Clyde for not being present in their marriage a lot and then there's a thing with a restraining order that's pretty silly. Emily is occasionally dressed up like your typical horror movie spooky girl with shadowed eyes an over-powdered face and dark clothes; it's much more disturbing when she just looks like an ordinary though ill young girl. The scenes in the heavily Hasidic neighborhood in Brooklyn look oddly fake and while it's hard to think of who else could have played Tzadok an observant Hasidic Jew who is also an outsider willing to take risks the others will not Matisyahu is not a very good actor. Still the filmmakers should be commended for authenticity insofar as Matisyahu has studied and lived as a Hasidic Jew.
It would be cool if Lionsgate and Ghost House Pictures were to release the R-rated version of the movie on DVD. What the filmmakers have done within the confines of a PG-13 rating is creepy enough to make me curious to see the more adult version. The Possession is no horror superstar and its name is all too forgettable in a summer full of long-gestating horror movies quickly pushed out the door. It's entertaining enough and could even find a broader audience on DVD. Jeffrey Dean Morgan can read the Old Testament to me any time.

The trailers for Hope Springs might lead you to believe it's a romantic comedy about a couple trying to jumpstart their sexless marriage but it causes more empathetic cringing than chuckles. Audiences will be drawn to Hope Springs by its stars Meryl Streep Tommy Lee Jones and Steve Carell and Streep's track record of pleasing summer movies like Julie &amp; Julia and Mamma Mia! that offer a respite from the blockbusters flooding theaters. Despite what its marketing might have you believe Hope Springs isn't a rom-com. The film is a disarming mixture of deeply intimate confessions by a married couple in the sanctuary of a therapist's office awkwardly honest attempts by that couple to physically reconnect and incredibly sappy scenes underscored by intrusive music. Boldly addressing female desire especially in older women it's hard not to give the movie extra credit for what writer Vanessa Taylor's script is trying to convey and its rarity in mainstream film. The ebb and flow of intimacy and desire in a long-term relationship is what drives Hope Springs and while there are plenty contrived moments and unresolved issues it is frankly surprising and surprisingly frank. It's a summer release from a major studio with high caliber stars aimed squarely at the generally underserved 50+ audience addressing the even more taboo topic of that audience's sex life.
Streep plays Kay a suburban wife who's deeply unsatisfied emotionally and sexually by her marriage to Arnold. Arnold who is played by Tommy Lee Jones as his craggiest sleeps in a separate bedroom now that their kids have left the nest; he's like a stone cold robot emotionally and physically and Kay tiptoes around trying to make him happy even as he ignores her every gesture. One of the most striking scenes in the movie is at the very beginning when Kay primps and fusses over her modest sleepwear in the hopes of seducing her husband. Streep makes it obvious that this isn't an easy thing for Kay; it takes all her guts to try and wordlessly suggest sex to her husband and when she's shot down it hurts to watch. This isn't a one time disconnect between their libidos; this is an ongoing problem that leaves Kay feeling insecure and undesirable.
After a foray into the self-help section of her bookstore Kay finds a therapist who holds week-long intensive couples' therapy sessions in Good Hope Springs ME and in a seemingly unprecedented moment of decisiveness she books a trip for the couple. Arnold of course is having none of it but he eventually comes along for the ride. That doesn't mean he's up for answering any of Dr. Feld's questions though. To be fair Dr. Feld (Carell) is asking the couple deeply intimate questions so if Arnold is comfortable foisting his amorous wife off with the excuse he had pork for lunch it's not so far-fetched to believe he'd be angry when Feld asks him about his fantasy life or masturbation habits.
Although Arnold gets a pass on some of his issues Kay is forthright about why and how she's dissatisfied. When Dr. Feld asks her if she masturbates she says she doesn't because it makes her too sad. Kay offers similar revelations; she's willing to bare it all to revive her marriage while Arnold thinks the fact that they're married at all means they must be happy. Carell's Dr. Feld is soothing and kind (even a bit bland) but it's always a pleasure to see him play it straight.
It's subversive for a mega-watt star to play a character that talks about how sexually unsatisfied she is and how unsexy she feels with the man she loves most in the world. The added taboo of Kay and Arnold's age adds that much more to the conversation. Kay and Arnold's attempts at intimacy are emotionally raw and hard to watch. Even when things get funny they're mostly awkward funny not ha-ha funny.
The rest of the movie is a little uneven wrapped up tightly and happily by the end. Their time spent soul-searching alone is a little cheesy especially when Kay ends up in a local bar where she gets a little dizzy on white wine while dishing about her problems to the bartender (Elisabeth Shue). Somewhere along the line what probably started out as a character study ended up as a wobbly drama that pushes some boundaries but eventually lets everyone off the emotional hook in favor of a smoothed-over happy ending. Still its disarming moments and performances almost balance it out. Although its target audience might be dismayed to find it's not as light-hearted as it would seem Hope Springs offers up the opportunity for discussion about sexuality and aging at a time when books and films like 50 Shades of Grey and Magic Mike are perking up similar conversations. In the end that's a good thing.